The Tolling of the Bells - Better late than never, but fortunately not too late

Welcome back to the farm.  

     I’m really sorry it’s been so long since last time we visited.  But as the saying goes, better late than never, right?  I have had a crazy month.  Every day, morning to night, with the exception of a few rest days my husband demanded I take, I have been typing my fingers off on transcripts leaving me absolutely no time for extracurricular activities like blogging.  But, as of June 17th, fortunately and unfortunately, I have an entire month off.  I work for my sister-in-law, and she’s on vacation, which means so am I, whether I can afford it or not, alas.  But there is a ton around here that hasn’t been getting done because I just have not had the opportunity, so hopefully I’ll get off my butt and get some progress made on cleaning up the house and maybe completing some projects. 

     My sister-in-law and her family were actually supposed to be visiting us on their way across the country.  They live in Georgia, we live in Texas, and they were on their way RVing cross-country to visit family in Alaska.  We were penciled in on day two of their adventure, I think, which was all very scheduled and regimented.  X number of miles in Y hours, Z amount of time spent at locations A, B, and C, etc.  I don’t know if I could handle the pressure of that kind of road trip.  I love to plan, but over planning can often kill an outing, because you spend so much time stressing about keeping on schedule and on track that you miss out on the actual adventure and fun. 

     Also, over planning and micromanaging gives WAY more opportunity for things to go wrong.  Which they did, of course, before they ever even left home.  As far as I know everything was still a go.  There are only three of us here on the homestead, but my sister-in-law has 4 kids, plus the two adults so on top of my own household I was going to have to plan a dramatically larger meal than I am used to.  So I had mountains of food I’d been cooking all day in preparation for the following day’s dinner.  Then, around dinner time that day (which wound up being fast food ironically, because even though I’d been cooking all day long, it was all for the next day’s anticipated guests.) I get a text message that they’re not coming. 

     It turned out a part in their RV’s fridge was broken, they were waiting to try to get a replacement, and it was going to set them back in their schedule, so they had to cut us out of the trip.  We ate enchiladas for 3 days (even after I froze some for later), mexi-rice for 4, and we’re STILL eating black beans.  I think if I ever see another black bean again, it’ll be too soon.  I still have enough in the fridge to freeze for some unidentified time in the future when I can consider them again without feeling nauseous. 

     Father’s day, we went on an adventure to a local big cat sanctuary and ate at a little greasy spoon diner we’d never been to before.  The food was good, but the service was spectacular.  They’ll definitely be seeing more of us around The Black Kettle. I can’t remember our waitress’s name, and I really wish I could.  I’d call them up and tell the manager what a great job she did. 

     The rest of this week has been spent in both rest and something like mourning.  My husband and I finally made the decision to put our dog down a couple of days ago.  We’ve been back and forth about trying to rehome her, relinquish her to the pound, put her down, or keep giving her more chances for the past several years.  We’ve only had her since February of 2014.  We got her right after our son’s first birthday. My husband and I both felt like a little boy should definitely have a dog. 

     She was only about four months old when we got her, so her nips and mild hostilities were brushed off as untrained.  After she passed her first year, we thought she’d start to mellow out.  She would push aside our son in order to demand being the center of attention.  She nipped him on occasion and was constantly stealing his food.  She was smart, and she learned that there were things that she was not supposed to get caught doing, but she would not stop doing them, just get smarter about when and how she did them. 

     Disciplining her was a challenge, as was training, because the only time to successfully discipline a dog is in the moments after a deed has been done that is unacceptable.  So the sneakier she got, the let discipline she received, and we thought she was behaving, but she wasn’t.  Our little boy wasn’t scared of her, per se, but he was intimidated by her.  She would lunge and snap at us when we would try to physically discipline her, despite doing everything we could to instill in her a sense of dominance and pack hierarchy.  She never seemed to get the picture. 

     Our son was always very gentle with and considerate of her.  We are animal lovers and wouldn't let him be toddler mean to her.  We taught him to be calm and careful and gentle.  She has left bruises on him from bites and nips, and he would scream bloody murder whenever she would run toward him, because she had a habit of knocking him to the ground.  We were afraid that one day she’d do more than just bruise him or that one day she would actually manage to connect with one of us instead of just snapping her jaws on empty air.  We kept saying she deserved one more chance, though.  Just one more.  And one more, and one more.  Until finally, we realized we’ve been saying that for over a year.  She wasn’t getting better, she was just getting sneakier, faster, more daring, and slowly more aggressive. 

     We talked to the man at the animal shelter, and he agreed, we had done everything we could do to try to be good dog parents.  She just, as my dad would’ve said, had snakes in her head that reared up now and then.  She was unpredictable, and we finally couldn’t handle that around our child anymore.  We had tried to find her a new home, but I believe in full disclosure and didn’t want to give her to someone without them being fully aware of what they might be getting into.  In addition to being unpredictable and occasionally aggressive with people, she would chase and attack livestock that was smaller than her, so in our rural area of the world, livestock and small kids are kind of a given.  No one wanted her. 

     The shelter wouldn’t adopt her out, either. She would have been immediately marked for death.  So my husband did it himself.  He was heartbroken about it, and I’m not far behind him.  I think he hurts worse, because he had to look her in the eyes when she died, but I feel so responsible for her death.  I adopted her from the shelter.  I was the one responsible for her training.  I was the one she slept with at night, whose feet she laid at during the day.  I was the one she responded to, answered to, came running for.  Other than the idea that we adopted her to be our son’s, she was in every way my dog.  And now she’s gone.  And I feel like it is my fault. 

     I have dreamed about her for the past few nights.  I wake up looking for her at the foot of my bed.  I feel like the worst type of person who would just throw a life away because it didn’t \conform to a human sense of right and wrong that she didn’t fully understand.  But if she had hurt my little boy... that guilt would have been unbearable.  I can live with this.  It will pass.  But if something had happened to him, I never would have been able to forgive myself. 

     I keep coming back to that and reminding myself of that.  And also realizing that if we had given her away or lied about her aggression when we surrendered her to the pound, she could have been put in the path of someone else’s child.  How would I have felt if I had read the news that a local child had been maimed or killed by their dog and seen a picture of her? 

     We haven’t discussed another dog.  Maybe in a few years, after our son is older we might consider adopting another dog.  Maybe we’ll just pick out one of the rabbits to be a house bunny.  Maybe we’ll get a cat.  But maybe we’ll just wait a while and let our hearts heal a bit more.  I know we did the right thing, the best thing for our son, even though it cost our dog her life.  I know that she was a threat to him and even to myself and my husband when she had one of her spells.  But I don’t feel any less responsible or guilty even so.

     So with one thing and another, even with Father’s Day being so pleasant, this has been a disheartening week and a stressful past few weeks.  Here’s to the next couple of weeks being nice and mundane while we regather ourselves.

     Genie, I’m so sorry.  I wish I could have somehow fixed whatever was broken in your head and in your heart.  I did my best.  It just wasn't good enough.

Pinching Pennies - Glasses

     Pinching pennies!  I’ll pinch them boogers till they bleed over some things, others I’m a little more lax about.  I would like to say that I get a great deal no matter what I’m buying, but I’m not that good yet. 

     One of the largest expenses for some people are healthcare associated costs.  Some people don’t think about vision when they think about healthcare; although, if we can’t see that is a massive impact on the way we live our lives.  Some people opt out of vision, because they don't think it's that important.  But it really can be.  Cataracts, macular degeneration, glaucoma, etc., can completely derail a person's way of life.  

     I am fortunate enough to have a vision plan that covers the cost of an eye exam every year or two.  I really ought to check on the frequency, but I believe I am allowed one eye exam annually.  After that?  I’m on my own.  Glasses are not covered.  Contacts are not covered.  Corrective surgery is not covered.  Not that I’d really consider surgery after the nightmare my husband has been through with his, but you get my point.  I think, and again, I really should check on this, that I might have coverage for what would be considered a more medical problem, like treatment of an actual condition, infection, etc., but refractive correction for poor eyesight is not one of the things that Tricare cares about, apparently.

     The last time I bought glasses from an optometrist’s office, they cost me over $300.  I was talking to my cousin the other day, and her most recent pair (bought this year) were in the same ballpark.  That’s a lot to me.  That's a car payment, a month's worth of groceries, or a trip back to Georgia to see family.  I can say to myself, “Self, that’s no problem.  Just put back $25 a month.  No big.”  Then something comes up and the car needs a battery, or the tire suddenly develops a slow leak, or the electric bill is unusually high, or the kid gets sick, and there went that $25. 

     And why are glasses so danged expensive anyway?  I started wondering if I *had* to pay that much money for a few bits of metal and some specially bent plastic.  I asked around, and a few people referred me to Zenni Optical.  They boast about having frames as low as $6.99, lenses included.  What?  Yep.  I was a bit leery.  I mean, how good could they be, right?> Turns out the super cheap ones are mostly kid sized or for people with teeny tiny heads.  I have to move on up to at least the $20 range to fit my big ole melon. 

     But how good are they?  Good enough.  I bought a pair of sunglasses and a pair of eyeglasses three years ago for $25 with a buy-1-get-1 coupon.  They’re still holding up.  The prescription is accurate.  The eye doctor I go to uses the old prescription as a jumping off point for the current eye exam, so my glasses were tested while I was there today.  The sunglasses have been left in the car for three years solid and had no issues with the heat or cold.  My cousin’s $300 glasses cracked in the heat of her car a week or so after purchase.  Unreal.  For $300, those boogers need to be indestructible, life-time guaranteed. 

     I just placed an order for glasses and sunglasses today, and I paid $64, shipped, with anti-glare coating, scratch resistant lenses, and the sunglasses tinted at 80% with UVA and UVB protection.  If I had bought them from my eye doctor, I probably would have had to cough up around $600 for the lot, or more, assuming I got the cheapest I could find and had a combo deal.  That’s 90% difference.  Yes, they can be more expensive than that, if you get the fancier bells and whistles on your lenses, like fingerprint resistant, water resistant, a higher rated UVA/UVB protective coating, or the super thin lenses, but it is possible to get single vision glasses for as little as $7 plus a few dollars for shipping.  That's hard to beat.  

     No, I am not getting any money for this.  There are no affiliate links in this blog post.  I just wanted to share, because having to come up with hundreds of dollars for glasses can be hard to do.  In the immortal words of Mrs. Lovett, times is hard.  If you do order from them, make sure that you have a hard copy of your prescription that you can photograph, scan, or in some other way upload and email to them.  Also, ask your eye doctor for your pupilary distance (PD) so you can find correct sized frames for your head and your lenses' prescription will be centered for your eyes.  

Pinching Pennies - Glasses

     Pinching pennies!  I’ll pinch them boogers till they bleed over some things, others I’m a little more lax about.  I would like to say that I get a great deal no matter what I’m buying, but I’m not that good yet. 

     One of the largest expenses for some people are healthcare associated costs.  Some people don’t think about vision when they think about healthcare; although, if we can’t see that is a massive impact on the way we live our lives.  Some people opt out of vision, because they don't think it's that important.  But it really can be.  Cataracts, macular degeneration, glaucoma, etc., can completely derail a person's way of life.  

     I am fortunate enough to have a vision plan that covers the cost of an eye exam every year or two.  I really ought to check on the frequency, but I believe I am allowed one eye exam annually.  After that?  I’m on my own.  Glasses are not covered.  Contacts are not covered.  Corrective surgery is not covered.  Not that I’d really consider surgery after the nightmare my husband has been through with his, but you get my point.  I think, and again, I really should check on this, that I might have coverage for what would be considered a more medical problem, like treatment of an actual condition, infection, etc., but refractive correction for poor eyesight is not one of the things that Tricare cares about, apparently.

     The last time I bought glasses from an optometrist’s office, they cost me over $300.  I was talking to my cousin the other day, and her most recent pair (bought this year) were in the same ballpark.  That’s a lot to me.  That's a car payment, a month's worth of groceries, or a trip back to Georgia to see family.  I can say to myself, “Self, that’s no problem.  Just put back $25 a month.  No big.”  Then something comes up and the car needs a battery, or the tire suddenly develops a slow leak, or the electric bill is unusually high, or the kid gets sick, and there went that $25. 

     And why are glasses so danged expensive anyway?  I started wondering if I *had* to pay that much money for a few bits of metal and some specially bent plastic.  I asked around, and a few people referred me to Zenni Optical.  They boast about having frames as low as $6.99, lenses included.  What?  Yep.  I was a bit leery.  I mean, how good could they be, right?> Turns out the super cheap ones are mostly kid sized or for people with teeny tiny heads.  I have to move on up to at least the $20 range to fit my big ole melon. 

     But how good are they?  Good enough.  I bought a pair of sunglasses and a pair of eyeglasses three years ago for $25 with a buy-1-get-1 coupon.  They’re still holding up.  The prescription is accurate.  The eye doctor I go to uses the old prescription as a jumping off point for the current eye exam, so my glasses were tested while I was there today.  The sunglasses have been left in the car for three years solid and had no issues with the heat or cold.  My cousin’s $300 glasses cracked in the heat of her car a week or so after purchase.  Unreal.  For $300, those boogers need to be indestructible, life-time guaranteed. 

     I just placed an order for glasses and sunglasses today, and I paid $64, shipped, with anti-glare coating, scratch resistant lenses, and the sunglasses tinted at 80% with UVA and UVB protection.  If I had bought them from my eye doctor, I probably would have had to cough up around $600 for the lot, or more, assuming I got the cheapest I could find and had a combo deal.  That’s 90% difference.  Yes, they can be more expensive than that, if you get the fancier bells and whistles on your lenses, like fingerprint resistant, water resistant, a higher rated UVA/UVB protective coating, or the super thin lenses, but it is possible to get single vision glasses for as little as $7 plus a few dollars for shipping.  That's hard to beat.  

     No, I am not getting any money for this.  There are no affiliate links in this blog post.  I just wanted to share, because having to come up with hundreds of dollars for glasses can be hard to do.  In the immortal words of Mrs. Lovett, times is hard.  If you do order from them, make sure that you have a hard copy of your prescription that you can photograph, scan, or in some other way upload and email to them.  Also, ask your eye doctor for your pupilary distance (PD) so you can find correct sized frames for your head and your lenses' prescription will be centered for your eyes.  

Pinching Pennies - Glasses

     Pinching pennies!  I’ll pinch them boogers till they bleed over some things, others I’m a little more lax about.  I would like to say that I get a great deal no matter what I’m buying, but I’m not that good yet. 

     One of the largest expenses for some people are healthcare associated costs.  Some people don’t think about vision when they think about healthcare; although, if we can’t see that is a massive impact on the way we live our lives.  Some people opt out of vision, because they don't think it's that important.  But it really can be.  Cataracts, macular degeneration, glaucoma, etc., can completely derail a person's way of life.  

     I am fortunate enough to have a vision plan that covers the cost of an eye exam every year or two.  I really ought to check on the frequency, but I believe I am allowed one eye exam annually.  After that?  I’m on my own.  Glasses are not covered.  Contacts are not covered.  Corrective surgery is not covered.  Not that I’d really consider surgery after the nightmare my husband has been through with his, but you get my point.  I think, and again, I really should check on this, that I might have coverage for what would be considered a more medical problem, like treatment of an actual condition, infection, etc., but refractive correction for poor eyesight is not one of the things that Tricare cares about, apparently.

     The last time I bought glasses from an optometrist’s office, they cost me over $300.  I was talking to my cousin the other day, and her most recent pair (bought this year) were in the same ballpark.  That’s a lot to me.  That's a car payment, a month's worth of groceries, or a trip back to Georgia to see family.  I can say to myself, “Self, that’s no problem.  Just put back $25 a month.  No big.”  Then something comes up and the car needs a battery, or the tire suddenly develops a slow leak, or the electric bill is unusually high, or the kid gets sick, and there went that $25. 

     And why are glasses so danged expensive anyway?  I started wondering if I *had* to pay that much money for a few bits of metal and some specially bent plastic.  I asked around, and a few people referred me to Zenni Optical.  They boast about having frames as low as $6.99, lenses included.  What?  Yep.  I was a bit leery.  I mean, how good could they be, right?> Turns out the super cheap ones are mostly kid sized or for people with teeny tiny heads.  I have to move on up to at least the $20 range to fit my big ole melon. 

     But how good are they?  Good enough.  I bought a pair of sunglasses and a pair of eyeglasses three years ago for $25 with a buy-1-get-1 coupon.  They’re still holding up.  The prescription is accurate.  The eye doctor I go to uses the old prescription as a jumping off point for the current eye exam, so my glasses were tested while I was there today.  The sunglasses have been left in the car for three years solid and had no issues with the heat or cold.  My cousin’s $300 glasses cracked in the heat of her car a week or so after purchase.  Unreal.  For $300, those boogers need to be indestructible, life-time guaranteed. 

     I just placed an order for glasses and sunglasses today, and I paid $64, shipped, with anti-glare coating, scratch resistant lenses, and the sunglasses tinted at 80% with UVA and UVB protection.  If I had bought them from my eye doctor, I probably would have had to cough up around $600 for the lot, or more, assuming I got the cheapest I could find and had a combo deal.  That’s 90% difference.  Yes, they can be more expensive than that, if you get the fancier bells and whistles on your lenses, like fingerprint resistant, water resistant, a higher rated UVA/UVB protective coating, or the super thin lenses, but it is possible to get single vision glasses for as little as $7 plus a few dollars for shipping.  That's hard to beat.  

     No, I am not getting any money for this.  There are no affiliate links in this blog post.  I just wanted to share, because having to come up with hundreds of dollars for glasses can be hard to do.  In the immortal words of Mrs. Lovett, times is hard.  If you do order from them, make sure that you have a hard copy of your prescription that you can photograph, scan, or in some other way upload and email to them.  Also, ask your eye doctor for your pupilary distance (PD) so you can find correct sized frames for your head and your lenses' prescription will be centered for your eyes.  

Mother's Day 2016 and our Mini-adventure

     I missed the Tolling last week, because Sunday was Mother’s Day, and I got to be a lazy bum, eat take out, and play all day.  I can’t believe it’s been almost three and a half years since my little guy was born.  Now he’s a big rotten turdmonkey with a lot of sass figuring out his independence.  He breaks my heart, makes me proud, and infuriates me all at the same time, sometimes literally all in the same instant. 

     We were going to go on a picnic, but weather didn’t permit that.  It rained off and on all day long.  During one of the off periods, we went out to the swing and played for a little while.

     Pa made this for me out of a bit of scrap wood and Little’s fingerprints.  I may or may not have leaked a bit around the eyes when Little brought it to me and said, “Happy Mother’s Day, Mama!  I love you!” Exactly how Pa had coached him to just a few seconds before LOL. 

     I’ve spend nearly every day this past week typing my fingers off.  I had an expedited job that had to be turned around in 24 hours, and I haven’t really had much time for even setting up blog posts, let alone fleshing them out and posting them.  Today, I decided was going to be a day off from paid typing, and maybe just a lazy day in general.  That didn’t quite work out as intended. 

     This weekend, the weather was nice, if a bit warm, and I decided just before lunch that we should go on a mini adventure.  Pa grabbed a quarter, we hopped in the truck, and off we went.  We flipped heads or tails to turn or not, then heads or tails for left or right.  In dash sat-nav makes this a lot easier than stopping at every intersection.  We could flip the coin well ahead of time.  We came across Pizza Hut right around lunch time, and since it’s Little’s favorite, we stopped in for the lunch buffet.  Of course, today was the only day ever that kid had zero interest in pizza.  He was, however, very interested in all the young ladies who were working.  He played peek-a-boo over the back of the booth with the girls behind the counter and made monster faces at them.  They made monster faces and peek-a-booed right back, which he loved. 

     When we got back in the truck, he asked very sweetly to go to the slide, so we took a roundabout route back to our own little town and went to the park.  He had a blast, up until two trains had a face-off.  The park is next to the tracks, and despite the fact that he is infatuated with trains, they scared the crap out of him with their repeated horn blasting.  It was a bit loud, but we’ve actually parked next to the tracks so he could watch the train go by before and he was okay with it.  This was his first time being so close without being buckled in his car seat.  That feeling of exposure may have made him insecure. 

     Around about that time, we figured it was time to head home.  It was over 80, and we were all getting pinkish from the sun.  That was when the day turned.  By the time we got home, I felt like it was way past adult beverage time, so Little man got sent to his room to chillax for a bit.  He was hangry, because a mango fixed it once he calmed down enough to ask nicely and not scream at me.  Whew lawdy mercy, this boy and his attitude.  I don’t know where he gets it.  *cough-cough*

     It was a good day, despite the bumps, but now Pa and I are both footsore and pooped, the child is in bed, and we are getting ready to put our feet up and have story time.  I read Pa bedtime stories.  He’s not a reader, but he’s discovered he enjoys being read to.  This allows me to share my rather ravenous love for books with him without him having to read the Cliff Notes. 

     I hope all the mamas reading this had a lovely weekend last weekend and were spoiled at least a little, and happy belated Mother’s Day!

Baked Cod and Tater Rounds

     My sister-in-law is a wonderful cook.  She has gotten me to eat fish more willingly than I ever have before.  Last time I visited her, she did a deep-fried dinner of cod filets and home fries.  It was delicious, but while I freely admit I will never be thin again, there’s no need to add cholesterol and heart problems to my list of problems.  So, I figured I’d try baking it.  This turned out to be quite tasty, and since both the potatoes and the fish cook at the same temperature, the majority of the meal is hands-off and frees you up for other things, like tickle wars with little boys!

Baked Cod and Tater Rounds

For the fish:

* Fillets of fish - I used cod tonight, but any fillet will work. 

* Butter, olive oil, or whatever floats your boat

* Seasonings - I love tarragon, dill, and garlic on fish, but simple salt and pepper are just as yummy.  Play around and mix-and-match.  Try cumin, chili, and lime zest. 

* Bread or cracker crumbs, or panko - optional

* If using the above, a couple of beaten eggs for an egg wash, also optional.

For the taters:

* Potatoes

* Seasonings - salt and pepper, a blend, ranch or Italian seasoning packet, play with it. 

* Butter, olive oil, or whatever floats your boat.

* Shredded cheese for the second half, if you like. 

     I was going to use a cookie sheet, but all the butter drained over to the sides, and that just wasn’t going to cut it, so I used a 9x13 cake pan for the potatoes and an 8x8 cake pan for my fish.  The two pans were able to fit side-by-side on the oven rack without crowding.  You’ll have to adjust your own baking dish sizes based on how much food you need to cook.  Since I am only cooking for three, I have some flexibility.  You can use two racks in the oven, just move your potatoes down for their second half of cooking and keep a nose out for scorching. 

     So first, start the oven preheating to 425.  Peel and slice your potatoes about ½ inch thick and rinse them.  Put some butter in the baking dish you’re using for them, and put it in the oven to melt.  You won’t need a whole lot, just a couple tablespoons for a 9x13 dish was plenty.  While that’s melting, pat your potatoes dry.  Normally I don’t bother with the pat dry step, but the water droplets in hot butter are not fun.  Trust me. 

     Season your butter.  That’s right, not the potatoes, the butter.  Just sprinkle all over the surface of the melted butter so that there’s a nice even coating of yum on top. 

     Put your potatoes in and shimmy them around a bit, or if you’re a bit compulsive like I am and need every potato evenly coated with butter, flip them all over once to get them coated.  It’s really not necessary, though.  You’ll be turning them half way through. 

     Put the potatoes in the oven and set the time for 20 minutes. 

     Sometime before that 20 minutes runs out, get out your fish.  Season it really well on both sides: garlic, salt, pepper, dill, lemon juice or zest if you like.  The seasonings are up to your imagination.  What sounds good tonight?  Just make sure you dust both sides well, particularly if you’re cooking a thick fillet, so they’ll have good flavor when they’re done.

     If you’re using breading, this is where you want to dredge your fish in the egg then roll them in your crumbs until they’re well coated.  I sprinkled mine with parsley after I coated them with crumbs because I think it’s pretty.  Unfortunately, I also used a bit too much, but it's still pretty, and yummy.  Put your fish in a lightly buttered pan.

     When your timer goes off, flip the potatoes and pop the fish in the oven.  Bake for another 15 minutes.  

     Half your meal is easily done all at the same time, and your stove-top is clear for cooking your veggies or other sides, but to me, the best part of it all was that my three-year-old actually ate it.  Even the potatoes.  He won’t touch a potato unless it’s a McDonald’s French fry.  Not Sonic, not home fries, not KFC, only McDonald’s.  I really do wonder if they put something in their food.  He won’t eat nuggets from anywhere else either, not even homemade ones with a Parmesan cheese crust.  *sigh*  

Monster!!! (jeans)

Hey, y'all! 

     Keeping it short and sweet again.  If you don’t keep up with us regularly, the court reporter I type for got a promotion, which means I vicariously got one as well.  It doesn’t mean more pay, but it means more work, which works out to more pay, so YAY!  Unfortunately, it also leaves me much less time to blog than I used to have.  Most of the down time I have from typing is usually spent either catching up on chores I’ve neglected while I’ve been swamped with work or with spending time with my two guys, who I see only for mealtimes when I have a heavy workload. 

     Anyway, this is a project I squeezed in a while back and haven’t managed to get around to sharing on the blog yet.  We are fortunate enough to get some hand-me-downs from Pa’s sister.  She has three boys, and her youngest is just a few years older than Druid.  They’re also pretty close in size.  I gave birth to the jolly blonde giant.  Boys use their clothes hard, and sometimes Sis will be like, “Sorry they’re stained,” or “Sorry, they might have a hole here or there.” 

     I’m like, what?  Are you kidding?  My child rolls in the mud and managed to find the one remaining cow pie leftover from last summer’s cows to sit in when he decided he had to get a closer look at whatever was on the ground.  I am thrilled to receive whatever she offers.  He’s three.  It’s not like I’m sending him off to a job interview in torn jeans and grass-stained sweatshirts. 

     Anyway, occasionally worn-thin becomes worn-through.  And then they can become AWESOME! 

A little felt, a little imagination, and ta-da!

     Make sure you cut the main patch a good bit larger than the hole it’s covering.  You want enough to be able to sew around the hole without missing the patch, even though you won’t really be able to see what you’re doing 50% of the time, unless you intend to turn the leg inside and right side out for every single stitch, which I didn’t.  I went round the mouth with large cross-stitches and twice on the eye knee for a bit extra reinforcement, because even though that hole was smaller, the entire knee is tissue thin, then trimmed the excess material off. 

     Before you commit and sew it, line up your teeth, if you’re giving your monster teeth, and pin everything really well so you can see how it will lay.  I used that heat bond interfacing stuff that you iron on for the teeth.  I cut it out in a random, jagged shape, pinned it in place, sewed around the patch, and then ironed over the interfacing to stick the teeth down.  It was much faster than trying to sew each individual tooth down, and I already had some laying around from a nursery upholstery project I did before Little was born.  Use whatever you have lying around, because scraps are all you need to make this work.  For the other knee, since it was so much smaller, I cut out a main patch and sewed it on, then I very sloppily appliqued a pupil and iris.  

     

     I was kind of going for Frankenpants, so the sloppiness of all the stitching was intentional.  After I got both patches on, I went back and put some eyes over the monster mouth, just for the heck of it. 

     Little loves them.  We’ve gotten nice comments about them while out, too.  I’ve even been asked where I bought them.  Pa says he wants a pair just like them when his jeans wear through the knees, too.  So I think they’re a resounding success.  Depending on how well the patches hold, they might even make it to another little boy once mine outgrows them. 

The Tolling of the Bells - Ringing my own bell

Hey there, time to sound off again.  I know I'm a day early but I really wanted to share!

    Big news this week!  I’ve regained the use of my knee!!  This is beyond wonderful.  A little over a year ago, right when we were moving in here on our little farm, I did something to my knee while trying to move furniture.  I went to the doctor after the swelling wouldn’t go down in a week or so and my range of motion was actually getting worse.  They sent me for x-rays and an MRI which both showed up nothing.  I still believe I tore my meniscus, but since the MRI couldn’t see anything due to all the fluid and swelling, they gave me some steroids, told me to do squats, and sent me home. 

    Squats.  With a busted knee.  I suck at squats anyway, but when I couldn’t even support the usual amount of weight on my knee without stabbing and intense pains, how was I supposed to do squats?  When I told them I couldn’t do squats, they said to do lunges.  These folks.  I swear.  And before anyone wonders why I didn’t try a different doctor to get some better advice, as a Tricare Prime customer, I don’t get that option.  The alternative would be Tricare Standard, which would give me more flexibility to who I go see but wouldn’t cover as much and costs almost as much, so there you go.  Government healthcare at its supposed finest, and we want to force everyone to do this, because government. 

     Anyway, political and governmental snarks aside, I felt pretty stuck.  I couldn’t use my knee.  I couldn’t get help to use my knee.  We tried walking, but that raised hell with my knee, hips, and back, because I’m just a bundle of fun problems and the knee was exacerbating all the rest.  Changing the sheets made me cry with the pain in various body parts.  Doing the laundry or dishes had to be done in fits and starts, often with my husband and I tag teaming the chore so neither of us was forced to do the whole thing.  My little boy would beg me to hold him, and I just couldn’t. 

     I was moody, feisty, depressed, and downright miserable.  I just didn’t quite realize how miserable, because life is actually really good.  I didn’t feel like I had a right to be miserable, but pain does that to a person.  We tried short walks around the property to recondition it, but that made everything hurt worse.  We tried yoga once.  Just once.  Five minutes in, after cow and cat and while the lady was telling us to “relax back on our heels into child’s pose,” the pain reached a crescendo that felt like ice, electricity, and something tearing all at once, and that was just my knee.  My hip felt like I had hot wires down my sacroiliac, and my lower back felt like I was wearing a belt of rusty nails.  So yoga was out.  Completely out.

     A guy I used to know was into Kung Fu.  He told me about Qigong.  That was almost 10 years ago, and it kind of just slipped my mind until now.  I used to do martial arts with my dad, and my husband trained with his dad, too, back when we were both in high school.  We were from different schools of martial arts with me being more heavily into Judo and grappling styles while my husband was Yoshukai, but the idea of discipline and body control is pretty universal, even if styles are different.  The catas were always something we both enjoyed, so Qigong came back into my mind. 

     That night, against Pa’s better judgement because we were both in a state from the morning’s yoga misadventure, I sweet talked him into trying the Eight Brocades with me.  Specifically, we did this video.  At the very start, during the warmup something in my knee made a weird movement, not quite a pop, not quite a crunch, but something moved.  After completing the entirety of the Eight Brocades, I was sweating and out of breath, despite how slow and gentle it is, but we both managed nearly all of it with some modifications to allow for our strength and flexibility levels. 

     I was a bit achy, but who wouldn’t be after basically three years of mostly inactivity.  Between pregnancy, surgery, recovery, injury, recovery, injury, recovery, and a very sedentary job, I haven’t been exactly the paragon of physical fitness over here.  I figured I’d give it till the next morning to see for sure how my knee responded. 

     The next morning, I had full range of motion back in my knee.  Read that again.  Full.  Range.  Of.  Motion.  After over a year of not being able to bend it past 90 degrees and not being able to straighten it fully, I had full range of motion back in my knee.  I could bear weight on it.  I kept catching myself standing funny to cater to my bad knee, and I would correct myself, stand up straight, do a little dance of pure joy, and stand on both feet.  My back, consequently, doesn’t hurt as back, because it’s not cocked funny due to poor posture.  Even my hip doesn’t hurt as bad, because I don’t have excess pressure on one hip versus the other constantly.  I was able to stand at the sink, do a whole sink of dishes and do laundry without having to take a break. 

     Pa says his back is unchanged, but that is still better than hurting worse like it did the day after our yoga misadventure.  We have been doing Qigong every other day.  I found a better video here that explains the moves and the breathing.  We’re hoping to move up to every day soon.  I still get out of breath and can’t do the meditative breathing properly, but that will come.  And in the meantime, I CAN USE MY KNEE!!!  Holy crap!  My attitude is improved.  My depression is gone.  I have more patience with my husband and my little boy.  This is a huge deal for me, and really for all of us.  I am not a super nice person when I am cranky, and I have been cranky for almost a solid year.

     Relief, happiness, peace, joy, excitement, all the good words you can think of, apply to me right now.  I want to find more forms to do.  In addition to the Eight Brocades, I've found the Five Elements and the Five Animals.  I imagine there are more.  I mean, it's a 5,000-year-old tradition.  I imagine there are a few more than 18 forms, but I could be wrong.  Maybe they refined and perfected and this is all that is needed.  We're going to focus on the Brocades until we have them down in muscle memory, then move on to the Elements.  The Animals are more complex and will require much more flexibility, strength, and focus.  I'm excited.  This may not be a weight-loss journey, but it will be a health-improving one, and that is more important, I think.  

Kristoff Carrots and Perfect Rice

     Today I thought I would share two recipes.  One is so basic that it didn’t seem right to dedicate an entire blog post to it, and the other is rice. 

     Wait, what?  Rice isn’t basic, you ask?  Nope, it ain’t.  I have been cooking for 32 years, and I just finally managed the perfect pot of rice.  I even did it on an electric stove top.  I didn’t think it was possible to get a perfect pot of rice on an electric stove top because it takes so long for the temperature to actually change after you’ve adjusted it, but you CAN get a perfect pot of rice on an electric burner, without having to use two burners. 

     I used to think, if you had an electric cook top, you had to use two burners, one on high to bring the water or broth to a boil, and one preheated on low to transfer the pot to when it reached the boil so it wouldn’t boil too long.  This only marginally helped my poor, mushy, sad, sorry rice, though.  I thought the best I could really hope for was not having a layer burnt to the bottom of the pan. 

     Gas stoves are much easier to cook on, because they respond immediately when the flow of gas is altered.  Electric elements take so danged long to heat up and cool down, even with new stoves, that it affects cook time and results for a lot of my food.  I’ve been using an electric stove for a little over a year now, and I still mess up dinner.  I feel like a newbie all over again. 

     Turns out there are two secrets to spectacular rice with actual individual grains that does not cook down to mush and does not burn to the bottom of the pan. 

1)  Wash it.  Wash the rice really well to remove the powdered rice that is in it from friction and the (possible) talc powder or cornstarch from processing.  All that extra starch contributes to sticking, burning, and mushiness. 

2)  Ignore the directions on the box/bag of plain white rice and follow the directions below instead.

     These two things will help you attain rice perfection! 

     Look at those individual grains!  No mush!  SO HAPPY!!

     I never use the parboiled stuff.  I buy bulk bags of plain white rice.  The directions say to put 1c of rice in 2c of boiling water, cover, and simmer 20 minutes, then fluff with a fork.  

     It doesn’t say anything about washing, first of all, and second of all, I have since learned that 2:1 ratio of water to rice is almost double the water actually needed. 

For absolutely perfect rice:

*Wash the rice well polishing it gently with your fingers until the water drains clear.  I fill my dish pan with cold water and put my rice in a berry sieve (one of those with the screen instead of a colander).  I put the berry sieve of rice into the dish pan and swirl the rice gently until the water looks almost like 1% milk.  I dump the water, refill it, and repeat the rinsing process for at least 3 rinses.  By then there is usually very little powder coming off the rice. 

*Drain well before cooking.  Leave the berry sieve sitting in the empty dish pan or in the sink for a while.  It will look almost dry again after about 10-15 minutes, give or take, depending on your humidity. I never time it.  I just get some other stuff ready while I let it drain. Just don't immediately dump it in with your water, or you'll still have too much water and mushy rice.

*Use 1c and 2 Tbsp water to each cup of rice 

     Bring the water and rice to a boil in the pot together, turn down to low, cover, and cook 20 minutes, then remove from heat and leave the lid on for another 10 minutes to finish steaming.

     I Googled around looking for recipes for the perfect rice, and all of the blog posts I found were in agreement:  Don’t use so much water.  So I didn’t.  And it was glorious!  You should definitely try it.  It’s amazing what a good basic pot of rice can do for an entire dish.  Everything I make that uses rice as the base is now 100% better!  My fried rice will never be the same!  Even rice as a side is amazingly improved.  I actually like plain steamed white rice.  Who knew?  Not me.  Not until I finally got it right.  

     And that second recipe I promised?  

     Kristoff Carrots.  If you’ve never seen Disney’s Frozen, you probably have no idea why I would name my carrots Kristoff.  Kristoff is one of the main male figures in the movie, and his best friend is a reindeer named Sven.  They share carrots.  My Little loves Frozen, and he loves Kristoff and Sven, and because of them, he will eat carrots, sometimes, if I fix them this way. So these are Kristoff Carrots.  Little named them LOL. 

Kristoff Carrots:

*1 lb carrots - baby, sliced, diced, chunked - just bite-sized.

*1-2 tsp vanilla extract or the seeds and pod from one vanilla bean

*some water

*some butter

*some salt and pepper

*some honey or real maple syrup - pancake syrup works just fine, and I’m sure you could use plain corn syrup, but I’d opt for dark rather than light.  You could even try molasses if that’s your thing.  I don’t much care for molasses myself. 

     The length of time this takes to cook depends entirely on how big your pieces of carrot are.  Usually it takes me about 20-30 minutes to get them as tender as Little likes them when they’re sliced, 10-15 minutes more if they’re baby carrots.  In the end, it’s personal preference, because you might like yours crunchier or softer than we do. 

     Put your carrots in a pot, and add enough water to come up to the top of the carrots.  Turn heat to high until it boils, then turn it down to a nice simmer until they’re as tender as you want them.  Drain.  I save the water for soups later, because it’s got carroty flavor and some of the water soluble vitamins from the carrots.  If you're using a whole vanilla bean, you would add it while the carrots are cooking to extract the flavor. 

     Add a pat of butter and enough of the sweet syrupy substance of your choice to glaze the carrots (a Tbsp or two is usually enough for us), add the vanilla, sprinkle with just a little salt and pepper (1/2t and 1/4t usually are plenty for us) to taste. 

    These are an all-around family favorite for us and I usually have to make two pounds of carrots at a time, because the Little will eat two or three helpings of them sometimes.  When he decides carrots aren’t the devil.  

**This recipe was modified from a Martha Stewart recipe for maple-vanilla glazed carrots, so it's not my original idea.  I just changed it around a bit.  

The Tolling of the Bells: A blessing and a ghostie (or two)

     It’s time to sound off again already.  The weeks are flying by over here.  I’ve been busier than a one-legged man in that proverbial butt kicking contest, and things are just going to get busier.  I got word from the court reporter I contract with that she got promoted to head reporter in her firm.  That means more work for both of us, which means more pay for both of us.  This is great news, because we got a new-to-us truck. 

     I just paid off our old truck, a little standard, all manual Tacoma.  It was a good little truck, with stress on the word little, and with everything being bare bones basic, it wasn’t exactly the most comfortable thing to ride in or drive around.  But it was a good little truck and paid for.  Matter of fact, paying off that truck is the primary reason we were able to get Internet. 

     Enter sweet deal part the first:  A Dodge 1500 Laramie, Longhorn edition, with all the bells and whistles.  Blue book sale value at about 27-28,000, sticker priced for 23,000.  It’s got all the things a broke-back grunt could want, primarily, a higher cab clearance and eight-way adjustable seats that are both heated and cooled.  Pretty much everything else could go hang, but the seats and the cab clearance needed an upgrade.  Pa could and did drive the Tacoma, but even for a short trip just down to the doctor and back, he’d come back barely able to walk, with one leg numb and the other misfiring.  He would be stove up for days just driving down to the next major town for a bit of shopping.  But even at 5,000 below blue book value, that truck was out of our price range.  We just couldn’t swing the payments for it. 

     Enter sweet deal part the second.  That Tacoma I mentioned?  It was a 2008, so no spring chicken, and it had cosmetic problems with both the interior and the exterior.  No mechanical problems, but being generous, private party sale blue book value would only have been 5,000.  Those guys at the car lot told Pa they’d give him 8,000 for the Tacoma and drop the price of a Laramie another 2,000.  So basically, we got double value for the Tacoma, and a very nice truck for 7,000 below blue book value. 

     So now we have a truck payment again, but we all love the new truck.  The old truck was a regular cab, so Little could only ride with Pa in it as long as they were tooling around through the pasture, not out on the road.  But the car seat has been officially moved to the truck, and despite the not-so-hot gas mileage, it appears to be the new family favorite.  My Santa Fe has definitely become my sole scoot-about for grocery runs and independent errands.  Pa can drive the new truck without anything like as much pain, and when he gets back from a trip, he doesn’t have the lingering nerve pain and flare-ups that he had kinked up in the Tacoma.  I honestly haven’t seen him use his cane since we got the new truck. 

     Also, we have at least two ghosts. 

     The first summer we spent in the house, Pa and I would hear what sounded like murmured conversation in the kitchen/dining room area late at night.  It was like two folks having a muted conversation over a late night cup of coffee after the kids have been put to bed. 

     Little said "Hello, girl behind the blinds!" back in October. Shortly after, we went to GA for a week or so around Thanksgiving, and when we got back to TX, Little got sick with a bad cough and nocturnal fevers. Nothing else seemed to be working, so I smudged the house with sage. Little got better, and I didn't think any more of it.  We didn’t have any more paranormal occurrences for months. 

     Now, a few days ago, Pa sees the girl in the pasture. Shortly after Little went to sleep that night, I get in the shower. While I'm in the shower, I hear Little's bed creaking and hear a high pitched voice talking. I assume it's Little and my shower woke him up. When I get out of the shower, I hear Little's ball pit balls rolling around and the high pitched voice, "Hi, what are you doing?" That's something Druid says to me all the time. "Hi, what are you doing, mama?" So I go in, thinking to steal some more kisses and tell him to go to sleep. Only he is asleep. He's snoring. He's three. He hasn't learned to fake sleep when I come to check on him, yet.

     So I go into our bedroom and ask Pa if he heard it or if he had been talking. He said he had been cussing under his breath at whatever is out in the shop rattling around. That's not what I heard.  I heard a little kid voice.  I also heard a young kid (older than Druid) say “Mom?” once when I was heading to the bathroom.  Little still calls me mama, not mom.  Very, very, rarely he might say mommy or mother, but it’s always in reference to a story or movie where that’s what they call the mom.
     Little was in the living room after lunch today and he suddenly yells, "Where is the boy, mama?! Where is that boy?"

     So Pa and I say, "What boy?"

     Little says, "That boy in that black wagon, mama! Bring back the boy?! Where is the boy?!!" He's crying like his best friend just went away.

     So I ask Pa about the black wagon. It's normally in the shed or the shop, but Bryan left it outside under the living room window yesterday after he got through mending one of the fences. We asked Little what the boy looked like, what color was his hair, skin, was he big or little, that kind of thing. Little said it was a little boy with "my gray hair," so I guess a blonde little boy was out in the wagon under the window, but now he's gone, and Little is very upset that he won't come back to play.

     I betcha I know what Pa is going to be doing next week while it's supposed to be raining all week. Maybe the library or the county clerk will be able to start us in the right direction to figure out some of our house’s history.  In my head, the late 30s don’t seem to be that long ago.  I guess because my Gramma never seemed old until she passed away, and those would’ve been her teenaged years.  But it’s an 80-year span.  Maybe something interesting happened here, or maybe there are just a couple of lost little kids who want someone to play with and miss their mama.  

     And here's a gratuitous picture of something recent that makes me even happier than a new truck and a vicarious promotion.  I love these two guys bigger than big!